DOMESTIC HEROES

08.28.13

FBI Unit Behind Kidnap Rescue

FBI

The unit that freed California teen Hannah Anderson from her captor in Idaho is the same unit that captured Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and rescued a 5-year-old named Ethan from an Alabama school-bus kidnapping—all within the last six months. The FBI's Hostage Rescue Team is apparently the force behind three of this year's highest-profile domestic operations and no wonder: it trains and often operates alongside the Navy's SEAL Team Six and the Army's Delta Force, making the unit one of the country's three top-level “Tier 1” CT assets. There is one major difference between the Hostage Rescue Team and the Naval or Army outfits it is on par with, however: As Louis J. Freeh, former director of the FBI once stated, “The members of the HRT are not commandos.”